One Foot Wrong

June 1, 2009
Australian actor and young-adult writer Laguna (Too Loud Lily
) delivers a grim, creepy, powerful first-person narrative about a direly neglected child whose knowledge of the world is severely circumscribed by her fanatically Christian parents. Told entirely in the solipsistic point of view of Hester, the only child of paranoid, abusive parents, the novel pursues the girl’s deeply troubling relationship with them and their bizarre world view. Begrudged her difficult birth, Hester is routinely hung, Christ-like, from her arms in the basement by her depressed mother, who sequesters the young girl in their shared cabin, her only book The Abridged Picture Bible
. Hester’s brief foray to school, thanks to the intervention of the town authorities, proves eye-opening (she makes her first friend, Mary), but ultimately disastrous. Molested by her father through her adolescence, Hester is finally institutionalized when her parents can no longer control her. Laguna’s rendering of Hester’s fragile mental state is sympathetic and touching, especially through imagined dialogue with inanimate objects and in the friendship Hester makes with Mary, and then in the institution, with Norma. A truly haunting tale that readers won’t soon forget, from a compelling, original voice.

June 15, 2009
Children's author Laguna (Too Loud Lily, 2004, etc.) takes a dark turn in her first novel for adults.

Imprisoned in her home by a fanatically religious mother and a cowed father, Hester has almost no contact with the outside world. Her universe is defined by the interior of her house, snatched glimpses of the outside, an illustrated Bible and, most crucially, her imagination. Hester befriends every object she beholds and crafts magnificent fantasies. From the outside, her existence seems lonely and bleak—her parents don't just neglect her; they actively abuse her—but it is actually full of wonders. Laguna does an admirable job of creating a credible, fully formed young protagonist and narrator. She knows that a child's experience, no matter how horrific it might be, seems natural and normal to the child. Hester's innocence is compounded by her isolation: She has virtually no opportunity to understand how wrong her life is. The chief accomplishment of this strange and difficult novel is her unique voice. Laguna writes with lyrical economy, and her craft elevates a tale which in its bare outlines seems like sensational tabloid fare.

A disturbing story graced by powerful, poetic prose.

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